I would like to answer the question by quoting the discourse published in another TE article titled ‘Peak Toil’;
‘But China owes the bulk of its growth not to adding labor or moving it, but to augmenting it—raising its productivity within industry. The secret of China’s success lies not in the workers it adds, but in what new capital, technology and know-how adds to its workers.’

What CCP or Chinese government is to do should be increasing quality of labor force through education and training, rather than increasing the number of labors through letting go of the birth control, especially in process of urbanization.

The conclusion is absolutely right. The size of China's labour force is reversing course in a way that has probably never happened before in history. Prior to 1978, the government estimates 40 million babies were being born each year. But since the one child policy was introduced, the numbers have reduced to only 10 million.

Given the state of the country under Mao, nobody will ever know the true figure pre-1978. But Ma Jiantang is clearly working from the latest census data, and its reasonable to assume this is a lot more accurate than earlier estimates. He is therefore only doing his job by trying to highlight the inevitable change now underway.

After all, those babies not born since 1978 can't now join today's workforce. And even if the one child policy was reversed today, it would still take 15 years before babies born today became available to join the workforce. Meanwhile, China has a 35 year gap which cannot be filled.

Equally, China’s major achievements in increasing life expectancy mean there are already 165 million over-60s now alive, compared to just 65 million in 1975. And by 2020 there will be 240 million according to UN Population division projections. Squaring this demographic circle will not be easy.

Chapter 2 of our ebook Boom, Gloom and the New Normal (www.new-normal.com) has more details in case of interest.

Its rather astounding how Japanese managed to fall in love with americans and after getting nuked nevertheless.Pitiful stockholm syndromed nation with a culture stongly bent on serving pedo urges of people all over the world.

And what does that have to do with the price of tea in China?
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This board is about demographics and the trends in the size of the Chinese workforce.
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As for the Japanese, if you are facing an aggressive Soviet Union, North Korea and Maoist China, then the Americans probably would look like a credible choice to stick with and develop a relationship, especially for economics.
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Later, China moved to develope similar trade ties with the US, in gaining access to technology and markets, and unlike the Japanese, currying substantial investments, and emulating S. Korea in setting up special economic zones.
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Did China become an economic colony in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s as a result?

japns did not fall in love with, they are just being made abjectly submissive to the conqueror.
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like breaking or domesticing an animal, you'd have to whip them and give them goody bags to train them into submission.
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that's why people should treat their defeated but unrepentant war time war crime awashed enemy by taking no prisoner but instead treat them as second class people, then and only then they will 'fall in love' with you, but watch out your back in the middle of sleep always, pearl harbour may be just around the corner.

A decline of working-age population caused by the redefinition of age group does not mean that there is an actual shortage of labour in China. A comparison of two figures whose calculation is not based on the population of the same age range is just illegitimate. Shortening the age range does provide a more actuate reflection of China’s working population and also serve the purpose of urging policymakers to put future labour shortage into their agenda.

The addition to the globally available Chinese labour force is not by any means over, as people migrate from the land,(where their income is very low) to second and third tier cities,Chinese incomes will continue to rise driven by urbanisation as well as productivity growth.
As productivity growth remains high (17% in the private sector a couple of years ago) incomes will continue to rise. Infrastucture is likely to continue to be better than in a lot of South and South East Asia.
The jobs which will go to Bangladesh and Vietnam will be the very low paid ones which require only a sewing machine (or similar) as capital investment. Industries like Autos and electronics which have complex supply chains and a need for scale will continue to grow in China. China will still have a labour force of nearly a billion. The only real labour shortage will be for very low paying jobs which will either move into the Chinese countryside or to the Indian subcontinent (or SE Asia).
This does not mean the Chinese economy will collapse or become uncompetitive, only that development will continue and really low wage jobs will migrate. China will really only have a serious problem if productivity growth stagnates (unlikely until the economy becomes a lot more urbanised)or investment ceases to make a decent return (which may happen without further reforms).

By the year 2020 twenty million Chinese men will find shortage of women for marriage. They are already trying to import girls from such countries as Myammar illegaly, it will not help much. The situation will further worsen the number of workers availabe after say 40 years, while rich young boys and girls are immigrating to abroad at a rate of 70 thousand per month!!

20 million? Try 65 million+.... basically the population of the UK... just a frighteningly skewed demographic never before seen in our history. We'll just have to see how it plays out, but with female Chinese babies STILL being 'off shored' for adoption I don't expect it to be good.

it is well kown (to me anyway) that during and prior to ww2, invading japanese in n.e. china did the inhumane unit 731, but also secretly and in larger scale used chinese men to stud and sire japanese woman and girls up to a million of them, to change the characteristic 'shortness'of japanese men. these females were later repatriated en mass back to japan by the nationalist china after the war.
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today the japans people are indeed taller, and you cannot attribute that to better nutritation becase live was extremely hard in japan immediately following japan's surrender.
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come to think of it, the two now even share the same what I consider bad characteristics, like vanity (china and jpan are world's largest consumer of luxuary brands) and thristy of animal and fishery blood (to be fair, only mostly cantonese for the chinese side and mostly northerners on japns side), yeeeeeeeeeeik.

but however you twist and cut it, it does not change the fact reminding the world that japan is still a vassal slave state with foreign troops and bases stationed all over japan. japanese are still treated as second class citizens at best in their own country by the occupying troops.
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china may or may not have labour shortage problems in the future, but in order for japan to be independent and free, it must let ryukyus islands to be indepedent and free first.
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only letting ryukyus will asian nations china, india and korea will land a hand to rescue japan with money loans and more trades.

Your comments is spoken for the Chinese readers only as the propaganda of the CCP, boy.
The fact is that the majority of the Japanese people accept the status and they are more than happy with it against Chinese and Russian militarism. Therefore your comment is useless.
Furthermore people in Japan does not want to spend so much money as China or Russia or USA for the army.
Least expense brings maximum profit, boy.
Maybe Japan is too cunning?

Well, this article is a bit overreacting. China's working population has been abnormally high and now it is time to shrink. Why is it such a big deal for a country with already more than 1.3 billion people? Look on the bright side. I can say that population decline is a postive thing since each worker can become more efficient than before.

As per the data, china has approx 10more years before the 15-64 age grop starts falling, nsb changed the def to give policy makers an Extra dose of precaution. I believe the one child policy only affects 64 pct of the population and is slowly being lifted to allow more babies to be born.
Overall working age population will decline but at the same time lot of the sweat shops will also move out to poorer countries, leaving the workforce to concentrate on higher valued add industries. All is not lost yet, like the doomsayers here would like you to believe. South Korea and Japan have done it before, china too will transition.

Firstly,I have to remind everybody that Germany is also one of the oldest countries in the world,even older than Japan,but Germany still has a very considerable economic growth in last 10 years.Although I don't deny the negative effects of population aging etc. in Japan or other countries,but Japan's economic decline relatively mainly dues to its falling competitiveness in technology and management etc.and other countries,especially S.Korea and China, quickly narrow technology and management gaps.For example,China or S.Korea also prove that they also can product higher quality products than Japan such as all kind of mobile phones etc..Before 90's,Japan was lack of strong powerful competitors,many countries still just restarted in Japan's dominant industries although Japan still has very strong advantages in many fields.

Secondly,actually China still has a huge so-called "demographic dividend",for example, in Guizhou or Yunnan,Henan provinces,many people still work on very low salaries,if China wants to exploit more "demographic dividend",it can provide more free professional and technical trainings for the poor,instead of economic aid simply.On the contrary, unemployment is a more serious problem in many areas in China.

Thirdly,the readjustment of industrial structure means China will more and more surplus labor force in many industries,for example,advanced agricultural machineries can and will be substitute for a large number of inefficient agricultural Labour force.China needn't 300-500 million farmers work in their farmlands in the future although many farmers already become modern industrial workers and managers in many fields.

Finally,in my opinion,theoretically China can double its labor's productivity easily only through widely application and popularization of the best technologies and management skills which it already has.Half of population,750 million,is already enough to create the same size of the GDP of China now.The other half poplultion ,750 million,is only wasting working hours in farmlands or other fields.

Simple and low-level,repetitive works can not make a person or a country become richer.so-called "demographic dividend" can only create more low salary jobs,workers can not get more money.Same productivity can not correspond to higher salary,or else,you can get a inflation only.

If China want to become richer relatively,China need do what the richest countries are doing and will do in their futures:producing high value-added products and services, invest more funds in the high-tech industries,improving education quality and actively introduce advanced technology etc.

I think the jury is still out on quality for various Chinese products. Also, as China moves up the value chain, and expands into different sectors, learning curves will impact quality. See work on advanced jet engines, like Woshan 10 and 15.
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Otherwise, many components and producer goods come from abroad.
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Por ejemplo, the WTO/OECD estimated this bit on the iPhone for instance:

"The factory-gate price of the phone -- $187.51 in 2010 -- will have shown up in full in China's gross export figures.
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In fact, according to estimates provided by research firms iSuppli and Chipworks, Taiwan was the origin of $20.75 of the value; Germany, $16.08; South Korea, $80.05; the United States, $22.88; and others, including Japan, $47.75."
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source: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/oecd-wto-trade-study-slims-chinas-surplus-u-090...
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as for age, Japan is still older by a nose hair than Germany based on median age.
Japan:
total: 45.4 years
male: 44.1 years
female: 46.9 years (2012 est.)
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Germany:
total: 45.3 years
male: 44.2 years
female: 46.3 years (2012 est.)

"Never before has the global economy benefited from such a large addition of human energy."

Stopped reading right there. The author shows an extreme lack of understanding on any real "benefit" to the world economy that the hollowing out of the US and EU's industrial labor force at the expense of near slave wage labor from China.

I should have known better than to expect anything of real substance about China from The Economist, or most western based rags in the first place.

Michael Pettis is a much more reliable source of info on what's actually going on in China.

For this situation, some people think this is a good news. However, I had to say this is a exam for China, examing the pension system and health system. Please also focus that there are two people affording four elder people's living. If somebody realized Japan deeply, he/she will notice that the elder become a major social problem, This is also one reason of slow increase of Japan Economic.

“For this situation, some people think this is good news. However, I had to say this is an exam for China, examing the pension system and health system. Please also focus that there are two people affording four elder people's living”
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That’s reasonable consideration and well said.
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Fortunately, there are enough empirical data accumulated to suggest that China has good confidence that its next generation workers will be more productive than today’s, and will be able to support increased social responsibility for non-workers (retired, disabled and disadvantaged ).
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It’s well known that with world’s 7% of arable land, and only 25% of world average per capita water, China managed to feed about 20% of world population. That’s some achievement, but then again it takes nearly 30% of total population to do the job. Whereas in the US, less than 3% of population produced enough farm products to feed the total population and then some.
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The difference is in the worker productivity (China's major crops are 55% mechanized nationally). As this example shows, there’s plenty of room for Chinese workers to improve productivity, and that in turn translates to greater capability to support more social responsibility in the future.
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The talk of "one child to support 4 parents" misses the impact of future progress and is too parochial and micro-spective in viewing the overall picture of things, IMO.

The situation is no different from Stalin's Russia, where the entire state statistical office was purged over release of data from a state census that showed tens of millions of people missing. (The missing millions were the victims of the Gulag extermination camps.) Likewise, statistics in China and North Korea is a highly politically charged matter. The Party has cost China something of the order of a hundred million murders. It is critical that information about these crimes is concealed from the Chinese people by statistical manipulations that allow the demographics to appear normal.

The situation is no different from Stalin's Russia, where the entire state statistical office was purged over release of data from a state census that showed tens of millions of people missing. (The missing millions were the victims of the Gulag extermination camps.) Likewise, statistics in China and North Korea is a highly politically charged matter. The Party has cost China something of the order of a hundred million murders. It is critical that information about these crimes is concealed from the Chinese people by statistical manipulations that allow the demographics to appear normal.]
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{Romney.Schield@yahoo.co.uk wrote:
Gambling on nation- 10th, 18:51
Mathmatically, the whites in usa were responsible for the death of 200 million people, and total genocide of over a hundred nations. Stalin was second rate, and Hitler a rank amature, who could not even exterminate a single nationality.
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Of course, all 3 must collect their prizes in hell.
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On the other hand, most Americans are friendly, which makes the comparison even more stark, between ideals of the masses and actions in them induced.
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Ad hominum attacks do not detract from the validity of the statements offered in good faith, and in my opinion should be avoided in dignified discourse.
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I do not drind or partake of coffee or other mood altering substances or practices, the worst of which seems to be television.

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Of course I understand that there are many views on the issue of immigration and land disputes. I point out the views which should be considered, but are widely ignored, because they make us feel uncomfortable. Only if we understand an issue from all perspectives can we reach an informed opinion.
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The USA (government) was worse than Hitler and Stalin combined, and we will likely continue to do irreparable damage until we realize our past sins.
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Imagine that a group of armed men break into your house, helped by some visiting police. When you fight back, they start to kill your family, so you and some of your family flee the area, and are not allowed to return.

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After living in the street for 60 years, a powerful neighbour suggests that a program negotiates a settlement. The armed men state that the bottom line is that they will let you live in your neighbour’s house. You state that you want your house back, and perhaps an apology for killing your children.

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The negotiation software states that you should settle on reclaiming your garage.

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Would you be in awe of the program and accept that?

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Even if you accepted, that, would your children accept that?

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But Game Theory can be used to manipulate a Game Theory Program.

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So, knowing this, you start the program with the information that your bottom line is that you are paid one million dollars for every killed family member, torture and death for all the armed men, and their families, and an apology, hoping to just get your house back.

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The armed men can figure out your strategy, so they state to the programmers that they want to kill you all, and all your relatives to stay in a concentration camp for another 500 years.

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The result of the game theory program will be that you have to stay in the concentration camp for another 200 years, which is what might actually happen in real life.

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Game theory will never be successful in such cases without wise impartial control of the input positions, and better yet, a world power defending justice, instead of perverting it.

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I think that your optimism in game theory to avert wars is at best optimistic, at worst downright evil.

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Tragically, the result of occupational wars is usually either a withdraw of the occupation army, as from Viet Nam after killing 10 percent of the population and destruction of the ecosystem, or an acceptance of the invasion, as in Japan where from time to time US Marines still rape children, or partial Genocide, as in the case of 127 nations that are in USA, or in Total Genocide, as in the over a hundred nations that no longer have a single living member (as actually decided by the US government rejecting treaty claims).

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Ghandi would have had no success against Stalin, Hitler, or Jackson.

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Would the Baltic be free if Putin had been President?

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Results depends more on personalities than on negotiation strategies.

It is not the number of working people that matters but the quality of the work force that does. Only Indian nationalists, like the Rajs of the old, will talk endlessly about their country's "population dividend" as if half a billion uneducated people stuck in poverty is going build the next superpower.

A slowly declining labor pool at this point is good news. China is already suffering serous environmental consequences of break neck industrialization sustained by the need to maintain social stability through job creation. The decreasing number of youth entering the labor force will give the policy makers the needed slack to transition the economy away from the present mix of manufacturing/infrastructural/housing into a more sustainable mix. As long as the productivity increases, the economy can keep on growing.

On the flip side of this is the long term 4-2-1 problem regarding retirement and pension. I feel the policy response to this is to abolish the 1 child policy or at least change it to a regional quota. Provinces like Tibet should have no limit on the number of children regardless of ethnicity while coastal provinces could have a ceiling of 2 kids per family.

"Provinces like Tibet should have no limit on the number of children regardless of ethnicity while coastal provinces could have a ceiling of 2 kids per family."
then we are going to have tons of poor tibetans who have not many work chances since there's not many factories there in the first place, all of them will become monks and nuns and live a life on other people's donation?? Come on, we need birth control in poor provinces but no birth control in rich coastal provinces where better education and work opportunities are tons!!

Changing demogrpahics are wreaking havoc with post-retirement pension and health care funding around the world - China has yet to significantly experience this impact, because their programs are so minimal.

Chinese welfare reforms since the late 1990s have included unemployment insurance, medical insurance, workers’ compensation insurance, maternity benefits, communal pension funds, and individual pension accounts - but they are still in their infancy, as widely nowhere near enjoyed nor as comprehensive as in Australasia,Europe, UK, or US.

However, as expectations and labour participation rise, Chinese benefit funding will hit a brick wall of a very mature, advanced demographic - by comparison, the USA is in a far better position to manage entitlements by extending retirement ages and prescribed minimum health benefits, while increasing tax breaks for private funding and top up.

Would the Chinese still benefit from a latecomer advantage, in seeing best and work practices elsewhere, while still developing policy with a population with considerably lower expectations in terms of comfort/consumption in later years?

That is quite insightful, really. Chinese people's lives have changed tremendously in the past, you can put it as improved or just materialized improvement. There was no such thing as social security before, so people's expectations might be lower than what the government can provide. But there is also widespread outcry against monoply of SOEs that only benefit a small part of the population. Those officials consume an alarmingly large part of the Chinese wealth. So lower expectations can also be understood as weak trust for the government. I say this as I am a Chinese grown up in China.

“Chinese welfare reforms since the late 1990s have included unemployment insurance, medical insurance, workers’ compensation insurance, maternity benefits, communal pension funds, and individual pension accounts - but they are still in their infancy, as widely nowhere near enjoyed nor as comprehensive as in Australasia,Europe, UK, or US.”
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That’s probably true. But Chinese social safety insurance plans, in their “infancy”, are being continuously improved upon.
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It took a lot to have these plans in place from non-existence. Further refinement can be much easier and I expect these plans to mature in a short few years. In the meantime, government spending per person on these plans has been increasing, minimum hour rate increased and personal income has been increasing at faster rate than the growth of GDP—meaning real improvement for wage earners.
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It may take longer for all plans to be self-sustainable, but that’s to be expected, even some of comprehensive plans in the West you cited have not yet been made self-sustainable.
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And you also need to know, before these government mandated plans, Chinese were not without social safety nets of one kind or the other imbedded in social fibers and traditions.

With the prior definition, people aged 15-64, is there a sense of how much longer the workforce will continue to increase?
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Regardless, does the existing trend validate the medium or low scenarios by the UN?
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I ask because I recalled the UN predicting China's population to dip and then eventually settle around 900 million people and change with the low scenario.
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The medium scenario suggested a leveling out just under 1.2 billion people if I recall correctly.

Actually most projections are too optimistic as the recent census showed. The slowdown in births was much greater than anyone had forecast.

I expect the next UN projection will come in even lower. But I do believe that China is heading for the low scenario which changes the whole economic outlook for the next couple of decades quite radically.

This is the whole point of the 1-child policy isn't it? Allowing each family to pool all their resources into 1 child's education?
I think Chinese workers' productivity have far more impact on the world's economy than the total number in the labor force, a few hundred million competing knowledge workers is not going to be nearly as beneficial to western economies as a hundred million low cost labor.

I also agree that this (NBS data) shrinking of 3.45 m out of about 1 billion labor force in china is good news.
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as chinese government is re-prioritising its industry with more emphasis on education, greenhouse gas emission reduction and productivity, chinese workers will be more educated, efficient, productive, healthier and richer. each worker decades later can support far more retirees and disabled than s/he can today.
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chinese population will grow older, as every nation does with a growing economy, but they will also be helthier, richer and more prosperous.
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this 'getting old before getting rich' nonsense is maliciouly intended, no chinese in his/her right mind should buy that.

China's high proportional growth rates are due to coming from a very low GDP/ capita base. In absolute terms (additional GDP/ capita in dollar terms), China has grown less quickly in the past decade than many other countries.
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E.g. while in PPP 2005 dollars, China added $4,550 to per capita GDP between 2001 and 2011, absolute growth was higher in Poland, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Turkey, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Sweden, Russia and South Korea.
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https://www.google.co.uk/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=ny_gdp_mktp_cd&idim=country:CHN&dl=en&hl=en&q=gdp%20china#!ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=ny_gdp_pcap_pp_kd&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=region&idim=country:CHN:KOR:POL:SVK:SWE&ifdim=region&hl=en_US&dl=en&ind=false

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While it is true that China retains plenty of space for productivity catch up & rising incomes, and this will allow China's elderly to enjoy higher living standards than today, it's important to realise that China's current proportional growth rate will fall in the coming decades (absolute growth in per person incomes will not rise much above East European levels for the foreseeable future).
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Already, scarcity of cheap labour, scarcity of land, scarcity of fresh water and scarce capacity of the environment to endure industrial activity is constraining potential for further volume0based investment and growth - China's economy has to pivot & reform, rather than simply scaling up. As that happens, investment returns will diminish and rates of capital accumulation will fall.
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China will have a much richer future to look forward to, and will make a great contribution to the world. But it's important to keep everything in perspective.